vixen
n.n. a female fox. It is also a slightly rude word for a woman who is very attractive or flirtatious.
n. a female fox. In a figurative or slang sense, it refers to a woman perceived as sexually attractive or flirtatious.
The vixen led her cubs across the field.
The hikers spotted a vixen watching them from the edge of the woods.
Alteration of earlier fixen, from Middle English fixen, from Old English fyxen (compare also Old English fyxe (“female fox”)), from Proto-West Germanic fuhsini, from Proto-Germanic *fuhsinī; the voiced v- comes from the Southern dialectal forms of Middle English. Alternatively, from the Old English adjective fyxen (“of the fox”), as in the phrase fixen hȳd (“fox skin”; compare Middle English foxen fox).
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Last updated May 18, 2026